InSAR operational and processing steps for DEM generation
Okeke, Francis Ifenayi
Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are used in many applications in the context of earth sciences such as in topographic mapping, environmental modelling, rainfall-runoff studies, landslide hazard zonation, seismic source modelling, etc. During the last years multitude of scientific applications of Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) techniques have evolved. It has been shown that InSAR is an established technique of generating high quality DEMs from spaceborne and airborne data, and that it has advantages over other methods for the generation of large area DEM. However, the processing of InSAR data is still a challenging task. For each selected image pair, several processing steps have to be performed. One of the current challenges of the InSAR application is to bring the techniques to a level where DEM generation can be executed on an operational basis. This is important not only for commercial exploitation of satellite InSAR data, but also for many government and scientific applications. This paper describes InSAR operational steps and processing chain for DEM generation from Single Look Complex (SLC) SAR data. The operational steps are performed in three major stages: Data Search, Data Processing, and product Validation. The Data processing stage is further divided into five steps of Data Pre-Processing, Co-registration, Interferogram generation, Phase unwrapping, and Geocoding. The Data processing steps have been tested with ENVISAT data using Delft Object-oriented Interferometric (DORIS) InSAR processing software. Results of the outcome of the application of the described processing steps to real data set are presented.
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